How to teach a kid to be job-friendly...give me some easy steps, please?

When you say lives “here”, do you mean with you, in your house? Or in the general area? Because if he doesn’t live with you, I’m not sure there’s any way to make him listen to you. It’s up to him to decide whose advice he takes.

I would advise him to dress appropriately for work when applying for jobs. Surely he must know that sagging pants and baseball hats are not work attire (for most places, anyway).

The harsh reality is that you can’t make anyone change. They have to want to change.

You can tell him that about attire, but it will be life experience that gets him to change if he does.

The problem is that he’s not a kid. At 20 years old, he’s an adult. He needs a cold dose of reality.

Tell him you will pay for an appointment with a career counselor, let the counselor tell him how to present himself. Also tell him he has two months to get a job or he is out on his own. Something like that.

You have to start when they are younger than 20. At this point, only hard times will influence his work ethic for the better.Or he can try to get a job as a DJ.

@Judi Or he can try to get a job as a DJ. That’s hysterical! I’m thinking since the OP is the aunt, maybe it was not her fault he does not get he has to conform a little.

No hints. No judgments. If you want him to be interested in what you have to say, then tell him you are there for him if he ever wants help in his job search. Also tell him that he must pay rent starting next month, and if he doesn’t pay rent, you will kick him out.

@JLeslie , I didn’t mean to come across as if I was blaming the OP. I just know that a work ethic is something I started talking to my kids about as soon as they could understand. With every conversation about why I had to go to work, and what it meant to be an employee, then later a manager and later an owner. It’s not a crash course you can get when you’re 20!

@Judi I completely agree with you. I just wasn’t sure if you caught she is the aunt. Where I live there is a lot of resistance to conforming, not only among children, but adults to. They resent having to wear what someone else tells them they should be wearing.

I’d ask him privately how serious he is to find a job and what he wants the job for or to lead to. Tell him in the modern job place, few workers were uniforms anymore but do follow a pretty simple dress code. Where a dress code isn’t known then the default is business casual, easy stuff. Tell him it’s simple to err on the side of caution for interviewing and the first few weeks on a new job to dress a bit more polished than relaxed.

This is aunt jazmina, he lives with me. His father has no work ethic either. No male role models, except the ex con down the street. He is a good kid, but wrapped up in a gansta image.

Respectfully. Treat him like an adult and lead by example. If you treat him like he is an idiot for dressing the way he does, he might not listen to you. Treat him like he would be a valuable employee—and you might find him turning into one simply because of that! You are his Aunt. Bring out the best in him instead of magnifying what you view as the worst in him. One of the last things he needs from you is to feel rejected.